lilibetbombshell's reviews
2642 reviews

Were you specifically looking for a book recommendation in the vein of, “I want to read something that will make me cry my eyes out?” 

Let me introduce you to Our Infinite Fates. I need some eye drops, I think. 

First, I’m going to tell you one thing: Ignore the whole blurb, because it’s trash and then don’t get mad at Laura Steven, because she’s not the one who was in charge of that disaster. All you need to know about this book is that the two main characters have lived innumerable lives and one of them (they’ve both done it) has killed the other in each life right before they turn eighteen. Honestly, that’s all you need to know and that’s the best way to go into this. The rest is all a fantastical, emotional, philosophical, beautiful journey that hops through history and closely examines the nature of love, relationships, empathy, and sacrifice. 

This was lovely and painful and I couldn’t put it down. 5⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher through the SMP Early Readers Program via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Fantasy/Romantasy/LGBTQ Fantasy/Standalone Novel/Supernatural Fantasy/YA Fantasy/YA Romantasy/YA Fiction

They say women can have it all, but maybe Finlay Donovan has had just a little too much at this point. Like, of everything. All of the things. Like, let a woman breathe, for pete’s sake.

As with every Finlay Donovan review, we begin with a disclaimer: You must start at the beginning of the series to understand anything in any book thereafter, including this one. As such, this interview is likely to only make a whole lot of sense to Finlay Donovan fans. 

BUT! If you aren’t already a Finlay Donovan fan, where the heck have you been? Under a rock? The Finlay Donovan series is the one book series I look forward to the most every year. I think I’d cry if Elle Cosimano skipped a year. 

I didn’t enjoy this installment quite as much as I did 2024’s outing, Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice, but it was great to see some of the characters (Cam!) from that book come back for this one and to see some of the loose overarching story threads that had been flapping around since as far back as the first book finally get either tied off or resolved. It was also nice to see Finlay’s relationship with Nick get out of neutral and into drive and learn more about the people who live in and around the Donovan household. 

There were some genuinely hilarious moments in this book (an eighteen-foot eggplant), genuinely relatable ones (the toilet training of Zach saga continues), the usual ones where we appreciate Vero and want her to be our bestie, and some when we really question Finlay’s sanity (I’d argue that’s pro forma, as well). 

The only thing that I felt dissatisfied with in this book was how predictable it was compared to the other books. Usually, Cosimano keeps us guessing well into the third act. It adds so much suspense to the plot that I never feel as if the tension has slacked off. This time, I felt like the tension snapped early on because there was this sense of, “I totally know what’s going on and Finlay’s smart enough that she should see it too”. 4⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher through the SMP Early Readers Program via NetGalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Amateur Sleuth/Book Series/Comedy/Mystery/Women’s Fiction

In the push and pull factors of migration, there are only two factors that cause people to leave the places where they’re born: climate and employment. (Yes, resources fall under climate.) In They Bloom at Night, the coastal town of Mercy once held a big Vietnamese immigrant population, but in reality Vietnamese immigrants of the 20th century settled mostly in California and then all over the American coastline in varying population sizes so long as they had access to the water. Sugar Land, Texas, would’ve been the largest population closest to the setting in the book due to its proximity to the Padre Islands and the Gulf of Mexico. 

Those immigrants left their birthplace behind, but not their ways. That theme, of being a child in a new world trying to find yourself when your culture has no term for you; really, it has no concept of you, isn’t a new one in this genre, but the way in which author Trang Thanh Tran approaches it from this angle of gender identity and sense of parental apathy really adds a sharp melancholy to the internal struggles and grief that Noon, our protagonist, is weighed down by throughout this whole book. 

That there is the problem: Out of this whole book, I only liked Noon. The Louisiana setting felt too obvious and an easy target for the plotline. The male characters felt like caricatures of rednecks in the deep south and it kept throwing me off. Covey, the main supporting character in the book, felt like a supporting character I’ve seen in several other YA novels in the vein of this one and I felt like I could honestly predict her movements and decisions. Then there was Noon’s backstory, which is one I’ve read before in YA novels with leads of all sorts. What saves this backstory from being called out is how it affects the entire plot and not just Noon. 

I just wished for more from this book. It was one of my most-anticipated reads of the first quarter of the year. 

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews rated three stars or lower will not appear on my social media. Thank you.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It seems to me that immortality should make you realize that anyone but you should be in charge of anyone with a finite life span. That there is what we call a power imbalance. That there is what we call privilege. Immortals have both the blessing and curse of time. Give them “magical” powers on top of that? Yeah, no thanks. 

The Radiant King couldn’t have come along at a better time for me. I’ve been searching for an epic fantasy series with a lot of action, found family vibes, political intrigue, unique magic, and a large streak of darkness for a while now. I didn’t want a romantasy in any way (I love romantasy, but I do read a huge amount of it) but didn’t mind a minor subplot or two of it, but I did want powerful female characters in the central cast and for the book to be LGBTQ+ friendly. Most of all, I kind of wanted no one to be what one would call morally “good”. I wanted a whole bunch of really messy people in a really messy world. 

That’s what I feel David Dalglish delivered here: Six extremely messy (and all insane, to some degree) immortal siblings (I don’t think they’re biologically related–think more spun into existence?) who all have divine powers of a sort and are toxically devoted to one another. There’s nothing one can do that won’t be forgiven, with time. After all, they have a lot of it. What happens, though, when one of them seems to be going too far? How far is too far? Where is the line?

The characters in this book jump off the page, grabbing your attention and holding it as they keep you engaged in this compelling story. I won’t lie and tell you there weren’t a couple of places where the pacing stalled just a bit, but it truly wasn’t enough to put me off when I was so invested in where this book was going, the story it was telling, and what was going to happen to these characters I had gotten to know. Dalglish shows off brilliant world building skills here, creating a deep mythology for this series, intense geography for the plot, and the ingenious broken tower that serves as the most important landmark in the whole book. It’s all vividly rendered and feels wonderfully fantastic. 5⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Action-Adventure/Book Series/Dark Fantasy/Epic Fantasy/Fantasy Series/Political Fantasy

TW: Body horror/lots of blood/lots of violence/animal euthanasia

The only way to possibly come out partially sane from being trapped inside a slick factory as a “slick sleeve” for as long as you can remember is to firmly hold onto a dream. For Diana, that dream is what she’s been promised for the day she retires: her alpha to finally come claim her and to take her to a real home of her own. That dream is a flickering candle in the dark of her cell, where she spends a lot of time with her beta caretaker, Dex, whom she loves but knows he deserves more from life than to be tied to the same omega he’s been tending to for years. All of that changes the day the facility brings in a live alpha subject to trigger a larger amount of slick production and he breaks out of the facility with both Diana and Dex in tow. 

Slick is a little of a departure for Collins, as I believe this was published in serial format and then compiled and edited into a full-length novel for her new Grayverse, where the alphas will go full scorched-earth for their scent matches, the plots are darker than normal, and the spice will have you panting. 

There’s a lot to love about Slick, but I did have a couple of small complaints: I can’t stand the use of the word “gash” as a euphemism for vagina and I found some of Diana’s dialogue during the spicy scenes to feel unrealistic and contrived. Both of these things yanked me right out of the story every time they happened. What I did love was the plot itself and how it ended up turning our poor, naive omega into an accidental hot potato. When she wasn’t being taken away, she was being moved to keep from being taken away. I also loved Rowan, the male omega, who brought so much color and life to the whole story. Without him I think it would’ve fallen flat. 

I understand there will be more books in the Grayverse, and I welcome them, because this one had some top-notch kinks and that filthy talk I love so much. It was worth the read! 4⭐️

🩶 What to Expect 🩶

🍒 Lots of violence, including pew-pews and pointy ends

💣 Heat, knots, and bites oh my!

🍒 SO. MUCH. SLICK.

💣 Male omega who only tops

🍒 A fetish for black leather…especially boots

💣 Consensual leashing and cuffing

🍒 Filthy, dirty mouths on all of them

💣 So many “intimacy” toys 

🍒 Scent as a commodity

💣 S3x workers

🍒 Slick slave

💣 Extortion

🍒 Scent matches

💣 You can’t trust anyone anymore

🍒 Naive omega raised mostly in captivity

💣 Believing in HEA

🍒 When all else fails, run

💣 Psychological conditioning

🍒 Role play

💣 Teaching an alpha to braid hair

🍒 Realizing you’ve been dating a delusional b*tch

💣 The enemy of my enemy is my frenemy

🍒 Suspenders

💣 Rubbing your happiness in your enemy’s face

I was provided a copy of this title by the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Book Series/Kindle Unlimited/Kink Friendly/Omegaverse/Paranormal Romance/Sex Work/Spice Level 3/Why Choose

It was just too long. 

They say religion is the opiate of the masses; and I guess if you’ve got nowhere to go, nothing to eat, and are on the verge of dying, something that might create a sense of complacency might just be welcome. 

In other words: Bring on the quiet, furious, violent dystopian nuns. I’m here for it. 

The Unworthy, beyond what you can read in the blurb, is best gone into blind. Written like a memoir, with all the roughness of a beginning writer without an editor on their first draft, our unreliable narrator documents the day-to-day life of the Sacred Sisterhood and the cloistered life they live within the walls of a former monastery. The passages sometimes don’t run linearly, and sometimes they cut off suddenly in the middle of sentences. I loved the intimacy of the writing style, imagining myself enclosed in the narrator’s cell as she tries to write down as much as she can by candlelight each night. There may be no more books, but there will be her history. 

The dark and dirty motivations of organized religion and patriarchy linger even after civilization has come to an end in this book, and that makes dread and horror linger in the background of our narrator’s story. That even though there is only one male living within the walls of the Sacred Sisterhood, he’s the one they all venerate and serve. Even though they’re all women, they’re still stratified as if they have different values attributed to them, especially his right-hand woman. This inequity only stokes divisiveness and cruelty among young women who are already disenfranchised and enraged over the world that has been taken away from them. 

It’s a bleak, yet engrossing read; a very full story that you wouldn’t know is a novella unless you looked. The story feels much more epic than you’d think 198 pages could achieve, engaging you and compelling you to come along and experience what the world after looks like when you reluctantly accept succor. 4⭐️ 

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. 

File Under: Dystopian Fiction/Horror/Literary Fiction/Novella/Sapphic Romance/Satire/Speculative Fiction

Have you ever gotten so far into a situation where you knew the best thing for you would be to leave but also knew you were too far into it not to see it through?

Mina’s in that spot in more than one way: in her engagement to a very staid, traditional man and then in the midst of an investigation into the weird happenings surrounding a teenage girl in a remote area in the south of Britain where she runs into traditions that counteract everything her psychology training prepared her for. 

There are a lot of fantastic moments in this book, mostly of the creepy and tension-fueled sort; especially in the third act of the book. Sadly, those moments only serve to highlight the repetitiveness of scenes in the first and second acts of the book, the bumpy pacing, the inconsistent characters, and the let-down I felt at certain plot revelations. I also felt there were certain plot points that either felt too convenient or too abrupt and loose story threads that never got resolved. 

If it weren’t for some fantastic imagery and the absolute balls-to-wall climax and finale to this book I would’ve rated it lower. As it is, I had to think it over before I decided on three stars. Do I recommend it? Not really? But I won’t say it’s not worth checking out from a library. 

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews rated three stars or under will not appear on my social media. Thank you.

So, in a relatively short amount of time, you’re whole life has changed: you’re no longer human, your abuser is in jail, you’ve been reunited with the love of your life, you’ve discovered your the fated mate to six other gorgeous men, and now you wake up and you’re in an absolutely lovely house that’s fancier than any you’ve ever stepped foot in before. What’s the first thing you do?

You’ll have to read Bonds of Fate to figure out how Nix Rena handles it. 

Bonds of Fate starts immediately after the end of book one in the Fated in the Stars trilogy, Threads of Fate, the morning after the Rhodes Pack finally gets to bring Nix home from the hospital. Everyone thought the ordeal was over, that they could all get right to integrating Nix into the pack and bonding while they waited for Nix’s abuser to go to trial. You know what they say about making plans, though…

Bonds of Fate brings everything to the table that Threads of Fate was missing by virtue of the fact that Nix spent almost the whole book unconscious and it was set almost entirely in the hospital and yet you get even more of those sweet, deep, affectionate polyamory bonds that weave throughout each and every dynamic within the pack. The emotional depth and strength of this pack, along with their deep knowledge of one another, is something wholly necessary and used consistently and often throughout this book as they come across one new development or obstacle after another and have to navigate their way through each one together for the happiness and health of everyone. 

Are there slip-ups? Yes. Not everyone’s perfect. Emotions are running high, frustration is getting in the way of instincts, and the urge to protect and sacrifice is strong. That’s the great thing about having so many people around to love you: They’ll catch you when you fall and help you find a better way. 

Tides of Fate, the third book, is going to be even more awesome and show more sides of this pack. But for now, enjoy this period where Nix gets to know the Rhodes Pack as they court him and help him find out who he is as a were. Enjoy the huge amount of spice and please make sure to read the front matter and the addendum at the back that Bishop included on secondary gender as it pertains to the Fated in the Stars universe. 5⭐️

🩶 What to Expect 🩶

🍒 Believing in destiny

💣 Why do I want to murder the person ringing the doorbell?

🍒 Lots of eavesdropping

💣 You can’t just rely on a cute butt to get you through the world

🍒 Alphas love a chase

💣 I am not prey

🍒 His body, his pleasure

💣 A whole list of amazing but truly exhausting things

🍒 An ass they write songs about

💣 Filthy talk

🍒 Am I self-lubricating?

💣 Wanting to protect what’s yours, no matter the cost

🍒 Dodging a bullet

💣 You were mine first

🍒 There cannot be cum and carbonara at the same time

💣 A cornucopia of kinks

🍒 The scent of home and love and forever

💣 It’s my right to make him pay

🍒 Soulmates

💣 A designation in hiding

🍒 Ruts & nesting & bites

💣 In-universe mythology

🍒 So much spice. Like, so much

💣 Unexpected powers

🍒 Nightmares

💣 PTSD

🍒 Explanation of BDSM dynamics

I was provided a copy of this title by the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed within are mine and mine alone. Disclosure: I did personally work on this title as a proofreader and sort-of beta reader, as well as an ARC reader prior to the time when it went out to other ARC readers. I also read this material when it was still in serialized format. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Book Series/Found Family/Gay Romance/Kindle Unlimited/LGBTQ Romance/Omegaverse/Paranormal Romance/Polyamorous Romance/Spice Level 3/Urban Fantasy